Monday, Monday

This was a post I made back in September or October of 2015 and apparently left it in a draft state probably so I could figure out the picture problem and then forgot.




Can't escape Monday or the cleaning that is needed, but before I go and dust or vacuum I thought I would come share a tad.
The weekend was super busy with shopping and errands on Friday, mixing cookie dough, putting together my little Halloween match boxs, and the finishing touches on the cookie pouches and milk cartons.


The other ladies and I met for lunch at noon at the Big Fish Grill and had a great time. I ordered seafood fettuccine forgetting that it came with a red sauce that I don't usually like, but it was very good. I passed out the treasures I had made and received some from some of the other ladies.

Happy Monday

I am just laughing at myself. I am a few days shy of having not visited here for almost a year. Wow! Time really does fly.


I actually create fairly frequently since I still work at Ben Franklin. I just haven't figured out how to take pictures on my iphone and get them here. It was easier with a droid phone.


All the products, papers, dies, and other supplies out there make creating more fun than ever. Maybe I should consider going back to taking pictures with my actual camera, I do know how to import pictures to the computer and then place them here. I know enough about technology to be dangerous and that is it. I guess I will have to do a little research and get back to you. Again!!!


Happy 2016 and happy crafting.

It's worse than I thought.

I just logged in and realized it has been better than a year since I have made any posts.
I must be crazy considering all the great products out there, Pinterest inspiration, and what I have actually been doing.

I did start to work part time this past fall at a local Ben Franklin Craft store in the paper crafting dept. WHOA!!!! Did I ever luck out. Great people to work with. Talented people to work with and inspiration galore. So I can't wait to get back here soon and share some of what I have been up to and things I have created.

Oh, by the way.....the craft room is still a mess.

Those fleeting moments of inspiration.

Have you ever been driving in your car and been composing a speech, a poem, or thinking about an art project design? Unfortunately for me, it always seems so perfect at the time, but frequently something happens to interrupt my process and by the time I get home, it has slipped away not to be re-created as well as I had it figured out.

When I lived in Salt Lake, I would love to visit the Antropologie store whenever I

went to the Gateway Mall downtown (after I had been to Ben's cookies of course) to see what was new since they have all kinds of cool objects inside. I hardly ever looked at their clothing line. What always drew my attention was the home decor items and the decor around the store. The style of their store decorator always appealed to me. One time, she had taken large bamboo outdoor rugs and painted a design on them. Very cool. I didn't have a use for any bamboo rugs, but I kept searching for a way to use that idea.....somehow. I also loved visiting Sam Weller's used book store which was downtown. Way down in the basement was a clearance room. It quite frequently held old books being cleared out for a few dollars. Just my thing.

One day as I was strolling/trolling thru JoAnn's, I came across some bamboo place mats. They were a miniature version of the bamboo rugs and were only a dollar a piece. I picked up enough to hopefully do an art project with my other rubber stamp enthusiats.I had also picked up several cool books at Sam's, but the two never came together until I moved to Washington.

If you notice, at the beginning of this blog, it mentions trying to clean out and organize the creative room. It was on this day I re-aquainted myself with the bamboo placemats as well as a book I had purchased at Sam Weller's. The book was translated Chinese poems. Some of the poems had simple drawings.

That long ago inspiration popped into my head, slightly on the vague side, but there none the less. An art project to share with some new found friends.

I took the place mats with me to my friend Joy's house. She has been hosting our meetings as she has a great place to work and share together. She also has a ton of cool creative items. I bought a few mat board remnants from a local frame store to use as a backdrop for our bamboo mats. The idea was to pull a poem from the book and build the poster around that. I had been saving a few pieces of Asian type ephemera for just this occasion.
I brought alsong a few stamps, ink, and embossing powder just in case.

The board I created started with the poem I had choosen and the colors in the drawing. As it turned out, the colors of mat board that were available were just the colors everyone would need. I stamped and embossed a dragon at the top center of my board using gold ink and gold embossing powder since 2012 would bring the year of the dragon. Using a watermark pad I did some stamping along the bottom and side of the mat board using an image of a ginko leaf. Then I stamped a few images on the bamboo mat before adhering it to the mat board. I did stamp a few additional images onto the poem pages for added interest. Using an embossing floder I created the Geisha image and cut her out as the embossing folder creates a larger image than I wanted. On the left side of the mat board and along the bottom I had cut a few strips from a beautiful piece of paper to also adhere as added embellishments. I had a punched item that had been sitting around for several years that I placed in the bottom left corner. Since the Geisha cut out was holding a fan, I utilized a paper fan that I had purchaed at World Market. I first removed the ribbings and actually tore the fan apart using a smaller portion. The bottom right of the picture is another stamped image that I placed on a piece of notepad that already had a design printed on it. And can you believe that one of the papers is a piece of wall paper? I love re-purposing. The finishing touch was an Asian coin and a ribbon to hang it from which is not shown in this photo.

Spring cleaning and catching up

Okay...so I haven't posted in forever because I didn't finish organizing and it's still crazy in the art room, but that didn't stop me from creating. I decided to share some of what has been going on because it has been too much fun.

In October a group of friends started gathering at my friend Joy's house to spend some time creating and sharing.
This is what we were up too -

Upper left corner was my card. Upper right was Joy's. Lower left was Paulette's. Lower right was Berta's.

The idea is to create your design and bring all the parts so everyone else can make one also.

For my card, I started with a watercolor card, trimmed the edges using deckled scissors and layered a piece of soft green cardstock. On a piece of mulberry paper I used an old ink pad from Ranger that had multiple colors in it called either Spice or Foliage. I have not checked to see if Ranger still makes these cool multi-colored pads as mine are many, many years old but still work. The stamp I used for stamping this beautiful tree is from Rosebud Rubber Stamps. They seem to be out of business. I have a lot of stamps and since I have been collecting them since the 80's, many of them are old. SORRY! After stamping, we added some dimensional adhesive, sprinkled in some glass beads, tied on a ribbon and voila'....a beautiful card for the fall.

I'm going in!!!

To the messy craft room that is.

I have had some medical problems for the past few months and haven't been feeling like myself nor have I had the oomph to clean up "the" room.
I probably have to update my profile as my step daughter Sarah had her baby a few weeks ago so I now have 3 grandsons. I wish somewhere along the line while I am still young enough to go shopping that one of the kids has a girl. I am so in love with the tu-tu dresses at Costco....I want to buy one right now!!!!! but I don't have anyone to give it to. The May Arts blog (the ribbon people) posted a tutorial on how to make the cutest onesie you will ever see, but alas, it's for a girl. I don't even know anyone else who is pregnant just so I can make one. I think I will make one anyway, just so I can look at it and make it a shrine until a girl shows up on my grandchild list.

I have a lot of ideas floating around in my head and have made some good buys at several local second hand stores to re purpose and do some creating with. So I'm going to hang up now (sign off) and get back to work shoveling off my desk top so I can show you what I did with some tiles I bought at Home Depot.
You just have to love the HD. I can't walk down any isle without wondering how I can turn anything I pass into some piece of art.

I'll be back soon. Oh yes, I won a spool of May Arts ribbon and as soon as that arrives I am going to make something cute....I am quite sure.

Having an organized craft room.

Please, anyone.....HELP!!!!!
Just kidding, but not really. My craft/artistic room is a brimming mess. But I love everything in it. What I am having trouble with is getting it all organized so I can use it easily and not have to hunt constantly for what I need. Sometimes, what I need is something I just set out mere moments ago and it has already disappeared into the desk top abyss. How could that happen???

I have tried to keep my crafting limited to things related to rubber stamping as I used to have more stuff when my interests were more diversified. Don't tell Bob.....I don't think he can even imagine - MORE - .

I have set myself on a course of cleaning out. I am trying to sort out those things that even though I like them....I haven't used them and maybe I can donate them to a senior citizen group or something and make them be useful. I could never just throw them away or donate them mindlessly. They need to have a purpose and I need to know they are being useful somewhere.

Recently I made baby shower invitations for my step daughter who is having a baby in early Sept. as well as some cute, cute martini glasses for treats such as nuts and/or M & M's. Thinking up the idea and executing to your own satisfaction is THE hardest part. Once you have the whole idea figured out, preparing all your parts and putting them together is easy even if you are making quite a few.


I used a transparency sheet for my ink jet printer to reproduce a small picture of one ultrasound she had uploaded to FB and that I had saved and used my print shop program to insert his name onto the image as they are certain what his name is going to be.
The ribbon was actually the inspiration for the card. Once I saw it at the store, the rest of the idea simply fell into place. I believe the ribbon is either from Midori or May arts.  I used paper from a baby name book to die cut the flowers on the front of the card. I also used that paper to cover my martini glasses. I intentionally used pages from the book that had what will be the babies name when he arrives, his dad's name (the babies dad), the mom's dad's name, and the dogs name believe it or not. Most clever and it helps that I know what his name is going to be.

Dang cute, aren't they?